True West Playbill

PL AYBILL

TRUE WEST sam Shepard ( US 1980 )

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a pproxim at e ru n ni ng t im e: 1 hou r a nd 40 m i nu t es t her e w ill be no i n t er m ission

ARTIST NOTE: Mike Ross Brothers.

I never had a brother (or a sister). I grew up in a relatively quiet house. Just me. Trying to figure what to do next. What kind of trouble etc. And maybe it’s because of that I’ve always been drawn to plays about brothers. I played Happy in Death of a Salesman last year and connected with that part like I seldom had before. Possibly it’s a buried desire to have a brother and so when I get to create a relationship with one (real or make believe) I jump at the chance. Creating a relationship with Stu Hughes of ANY kind is a rare experience. He’s a total original. Kind, strong, gifted, inspiring, gentle, fierce. He’s all things. Then put us on a boat that’s steered by Nancy Palk and you have made me a very lucky guy. Nancy has that rare combination in a room of actors of knowing exactly what she wants yet still remaining open to the collective imagination of the room. As an actor you want to feel guided and free at the same time. She gets that. Throw in Ari Cohen and Pat Hamilton as the cherries on top and somebody’s got to pinch me.

No wait, don’t... I like it here.•

Mike Ross, Austin in True West

p roduc t ion s p on sor

TRUE WEST

CREATIVE TEAM

CAS T Ari Cohen

Saul Kimmer

Patricia Hamilton

Mom

Stuart Hughes

Lee

Mike Ross

Austin

Production Nancy Palk

Director

Ken MacDonald

Set & Costume Designer

Paul Humphrey

Sound Designer

Nancy Dryden

Production Stage Manager

Graeme Thomson

AJ Laflamme

John Stead

Assistant Stage Manager

Fight Director

Janet Gregor

Assistant Lighting Designer

Rehearsal Assistant Stage Manager

Nick Andison

Lighting Designer

SOULPEPPER PRODUC T ION Jacqueline Robertson Cull

Janet Pym

Geoff Hughes

Wardrobe Coordinator & Dresser

Head of Hair & Makeup Cutter

Barbara Nowakowski

First Hand

Sewer

Natalie Swiercz

Mike Keays

Carpenter

Paul Boddum

Painter & Props Buyer

Greg Chambers

Props Builder

Daniela Mazic

Scenic Painter

s p e c i a l t h a n k s: Dav i d B a x t e r , B l a k e M a n n i ng, Pau l R e ddic k , T e r ry W i l k i n s, e l s i e n igh s wa n de r ,  R ay mon d & T h e re s a Sc h n e k e n bu rge r

True West is presented by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc. The audio and/or video recording of this performance by any means whatsoever is strictly prohibited.

i l l u s t r at ion : b r i a n r e a

BACKGROUND NOTES

T

rue West is written by a man who is fascinated by duality. In his youth, Sam Shepard was an able ranch hand as well as an aspiring artist.

He was in New York City during the ’60s days of peace, love and flower power but he recalls those years more trenchantly: “It felt like everything was going to get blown up sky high. It was like Armageddon.” Double nature extends even to Shepard’s professional life: he’s a prolific playwright who has a very successful career as a film actor.

As a writer, he drew his primary inspiration from two creators well known to our audiences: Samuel Beckett and Eugene O’Neill. He was especially struck by Long Day’s Journey into Night: “There was something wrong with the family,” he said. “ …a demonic thing… that nobody could put their finger on… and they were all taking desperate measures to stay afloat.”

This description could easily refer to the fierce, unpredictable relationship between Lee and Austin, the brothers at the heart of True West. At first, they appear to be opposites: Austin a settled family man and screenwriter, Lee a drifter and small time thief. But the bonds of blood run deep and as the roots of the brothers’ connection are exposed, each becomes reflected in the other. “It’s a real thing, double nature,” the playwright says. “I think we’re split in a much more devastating way than psychology can ever reveal.”

Another powerful influence on Shepard was jazz music, and while True West is more naturalistic than the plays that came before, a jazzy surrealism jolts through it as well. We think we’re watching one thing and then we realize something else is actually going on and it’s been there all along, right in front of us. This shock, this “unencumbered spontaneity” – in Edward Albee’s approving phrase – is part of the genius of Shepard’s work and it can be directly linked to the influence of Samuel Beckett. Beckett was, Shepard recalls with affectionate appreciation, the first writer who shocked him.

Perhaps double nature has an intrinsic power to startle because it resists easy answers. Even the title has a double meaning: it refers both to the wild west of the imagination, represented by

the desert outside, and the new West of Hollywood, where Austin works, just 40 miles away. Double nature is “... not some little thing we can get over.

It’s something we’ve got to live with.”

True West is the work of a writer at the top of his game. With tart humour and unflinching honesty, he grapples with the mystery of our deepest relationships, our deepest dreams. The deep dream of the old west was that it was a place to test yourself, reinvent your life, have wild adventures.

It didn’t always turn out that way. It didn’t often turn out that way. But like this play it was always a helluva ride.•

biograph y Samuel Shepard Rogers IV was born on November 5, 1943 in Fort Sheridan, Illinois. His father served as a bomber pilot during World War II and his mother was a teacher. Shepard began his career as a playwright at the age of nineteen, working in the Off-Off-Broadway theatre scene in New York City. In 1976 he relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area and became the playwright-in-residence at the Magic Theatre. His notable stage work includes Buried Child (1978) – for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Curse of the Starving Class (1978), Fool for Love (1983) and A Lie of the Mind (1985). Shepard has also worked extensively as an actor, with classic roles in Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978), Philip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff (1983) as well as Hollywood blockbusters The Pelican Brief (1993), Black Hawk Down (2001) and The Notebook (2004). After his high-profile relationship with musician Patti Smith ended, Shepard met and married actress Jessica Lange, with whom he had two children. They separated after nearly thirty years. True West was first performed at The Magic Theatre in 1980, but moved on to have many successful productions in New York, on Broadway and in England. With a career spanning four decades, Sam Shepard has become a canonical American writer with nearly 50 plays published.•

Background Notes by Paula Wing

THANK YOU FOR AT TENDING!

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Soulpepper Theatre Company is an active member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (pact), the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (tapa) and Theatre Ontario, and engages, under the terms of the Canadian Theatre Agreement, professional artists who are members of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association. Scenic Artists and Set Decorators employed by Soulpepper Theatre Company are represented

by Local 828 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. •

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TRUE WEST • •